Bucks County Attorney Accused Of Visa, Asylum Fraud

NEW HOPE, PA — A New Hope attorney accused of making false statements in visa applications was arrested Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney's office announced.

Steven G. Thomas, 52, of New Hope, operates a law firm out of Montgomery Township in New Jersey. According to the U.S. Attorney's news release, he is charged by complaint with preparing and filing false visa applications on behalf of his clients.

A criminal complaint detailed that Thomas advised clients regarding the manner in which they were most likely to obtain asylum, knowing that these clients did not legitimately qualify for asylum. He also prepared fraudulent applications and affidavits and submitted those to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the complaint said.

"These affidavits, which were designed to support clients' persecution claims, conveyed purported aspects of clients' personal histories that were filled with falsehoods, including events and incidents of alleged persecution that were concocted by Thomas or others at
[the firm], under his direction," Special Agent James R. Haines with the U.S. Department of

Homeland Security detailed in the complaint.

His former clients said they were told to memorize the details of these false affidavits and coached to lie under oath during interviews conducted by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officers, according to Haines.

Investigators found that at least thirteen affidavits out of 100 filed between 2015 and 2019 contained this exact language:

We lived together cramped in one room built out of a combination of mud, wood and cardboard. There was no kitchen, bathroom, electricity nor any running water. When it rained, the water would pour in through the cardboard roof and soak us. Our living conditions were so bad that we were constantly contracting different illnesses which we had to endure because we had no access even to the most basic forms of medical care.

Haines said the affiants were not related to one another.

The criminal complaint also detailed that, around January 2021, Thomas met with a confidential informant posing as a non-citizen seeking legal status in the United States. He told them they could apply for asylum at $18,000 based on violence in their home country, Haines said.

When the person later told Thomas they had never been the victim of violence while living in their home country and did not participate in politics, he said they could still proceed with the application, according to the complaint.

Haines' complaint went on to say that Thomas later filed an affidavit on the person's behalf without showing it to them, saying in the affidavit that they had experienced mistreatment and feared for their life.

U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger credited with the investigation leading to the arrest: special agents of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, Newark Field Office, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Jason J. Molina; and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Fraud Detection and National Security Unit in the Newark Asylum office, under the direction of Newark Asylum Director Susan Raufer.

The government is represented by Senior Civil Rights Counsel Joseph Gribko of the Criminal Division in Newark.

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